As I walked through the bustling streets of Cape Town each morning on my way to work at the District Six Museum, I stared in awe at the world around me. I passed by Zimbabwean refugees, sleeping on the sidewalk and hawking goods in the street, struggling to survive hundreds of miles away from home. I gazed in disbelief at the latest headlines in the newspapers that highlighted rising xenophobic attacks on foreigners and the failure of government intervention to stop the violence. And, for the first time in my life, I was in the racial minority. The sights and sounds I encountered made my life back in the U.S. seem distant and unreal.

This past summer, as a participant in the DukeEngage program, I spent eight weeks working on a long-term civic-engagement project in South Africa. With seven other Duke students and three Duke professors, I studied the anti-apartheid movement, conducted oral-history interviews with its activists, and collaborated with the District Six Museum's youth outreach program.

The District Six Museum was established by former residents of a community bulldozed by the apartheid regime because it was multiracial and diverse. The District Six Museum functions not only as a depository of history but also as a site for the education of future generations about the horrors of intolerance and hatred.

The semester before coming to South Africa, I had studied the District Six Museum and its history as part of a research project for a public-policy class. Now, a place that I had read about in books was coming alive before me, and I was helping to further its educational mission by assisting in the research for an upcoming exhibition, organizing a soccer tournament for its youth program, and facilitating an exchange program between South African youth and teenagers from Sweden.

Working at the museum forced me to apply academic knowledge beyond the classroom—an important lesson in and of itself. But perhaps the most meaningful aspects of my eight weeks were experiencing South Africa and getting to know its people. Despite the poverty and political instabilities that plague daily life, I met and learned from so many individuals who could still offer me a smile and speak positively about their lot in life. Amid squalor and shacks was a profound hopefulness. A privileged American, I was forced to question, test, and rethink my own basic values, assumptions, and worldview.

Civic-engagement work, some say, does not come without a price tag. Critics will often point out that outsiders seeking to help can actually have a negative impact on a community dynamic. Others argue that civic engagement is a distraction from the true purpose of a university education—instruction in a specific academic discipline (the view expressed by Stanley Fish, former chair of the Duke English department, in his new book Save the World on Your Own Time).

I disagree. Academic engagement and civic engagement are not mutually exclusive. By working in the community, I was able to see how the issues I learn about in the classroom shape the everyday lives of real individuals. By immersing myself in another culture, my own beliefs were challenged, and I was given a window onto a world that I never knew existed. My mind was stimulated in a new way, and I saw my own future possibilities in a new light. To me, that's education.

Blake, a history major, is from Buffalo, New York. He is a resident assistant and a member of both The Chronicle's editorial board and the DukeEngage Student Programming and Advisory Council.